AURORA

I40

AURUNGZEBE

translated into English, German, French and Spanish. Several books have been written on his life and character. The best estimate of him is found in Dean Farrar's Seekers After God. Compare, also, Pater's Marins the Epicurean.

Aurora (in Greek Eos), the goddess of the morning. She was the daughter of Hyperion and mother of the winds. She loved 'Tithonus, for whom she obtained from the gods immortality but forgot to ask for perpetual youth. She lived with him at the end of the earth, and when he grew old, nursed him until at last his voice disappeared and his body became shriveled, when she changed him into a cricket. Aurora is sometimes represented in a saffron-colored robe, with a wand or a torch in her hand, emerging from a golden palace and ascending her chariot; and sometimes in a flowing veil, which she is in the act of throwing back, thus opening as it were, the gates of the morning.

Auro'ra, a city in Kane County, Illinois, on the Fox River about 40 miles from Chicago. It has a variety of manufactures, including machinery, woolens, carriages, sash and blinds, silverware, cotton mills, a wheel scraper manufactory, smelting works, foundries, etc. The- extensive shops of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad are located here. The public schools are of high grade, and it is the seat of Jennings Seminary. Aurora has 38 churches, a Carnegie Library and all the adjuncts of an up-to-date and prosperous town, and is served by four railroads. Population, 29,807.

Aurora, Mo., a city of Lawrence County, on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Memphis and the St. Louis & San Francisco railroads, about 270 miles southwest of St. Louis. Agriculture, fruit-growing and considerable lead and zinc mining are the chief industries of the region. Besides the shipment of these products, the city has flour mills, foundry and machine shops. Population, 4,148.

Aurora Borealis, often called Northern Lights, a luminous phenomenon of remarkable beauty occurring in the high latitudes. In intermediate latitudes the aurora most frequently presents the appearance of long streamers of pale yellowish light extending from the northern part of the horizon well nigh to the zenith. But in the higher latitudes this light appears frequently as an arch or even several arches, with the summits in the magnetic meridian. These streamers and arches are in almost constant motion, appearing to oscillate to and fro or to shoot suddenly upward and then to disappear with equal abruptness.

Since the auroras rotate with the earth, it is practically certain that they are phenomena which occur in the earth's atmosphere. And since they are almost universally

accompanied by disturbances of the magnetic needle and by electrical disturbances, it seems highly probable that auroras are produced by electrical discharges, as was first suggested by Franklin. These discharges occur perhaps at a height of from 50 to 100 miles, where the atmospheric pressure does not amount to more than about one one-hundredth of an inch of mercury. Air under these conditions is a fairly good conductor of electricity.

When an aurora is examined with a prism, it presents an emission spectrum which is quite unique, consisting, as it does, of some half-dozen weak lines and one strong green line. This strong line has a wave length of 5,571 tenth-meters and apparently does not coincide with an equally strong line in any known substance. Such a spectrum indicates that auroras are in the condition of a glowing gas. And it is the opinion of two very high authorities, Vogel and Hasselberg, that the spectrum of the aurora is merely a modified spectrum of air, which as yet we have not been able to produce in the laboratory.

Contrary to the general impression, the frequency of auroral displays does not increase from equator to pole, but reaches a maximum at an average latitude of about 6o°. So that the northern lights are not seen so frequently in Greenland and in Iceland as in regions south of these countries.

The name aurora borealis is due to Gassendi, who observed a brilliant display in France -in 1621.

Aurungzebe (đ-rung-zăb'), the last great emperor of the Mogul dynasty in India. He was born in 1618, and was early appointed by his father viceroy of the Deccan. Here he gained military experience and at the same time became very rich. In 1657 his father suddenly became sick, and the eldest brother seized the power; but Aurungzebe, uniting with a younger brother, defeated him and soon gained complete control. His father, who had recovered, was made a prisoner for life in his own palace. The reign of Aurungzebe was the most brilliant period in the rule of his race. The first ten years were peaceful, and the emperor showed great wisdom in providing for a famine and in putting down a rising of Hindu fanatics. The rise of the Mahratta empire broke in upon his peaceful régime. The generals sent against this new power were defeated, and Aurungzebe had to march to the Deccan and take the field himself. He remained there twenty-two years, ruling an empire which in wealth and population was probably as great as any ever ruled by a monarch. He died in 1707. He liked to be called Conqueror of the World; but to show that he ruled as yet but three quarters of it, he used to tear off a corner from every sheet of paper he used in his correspondence.